What We Become
by Jokerang
Summary: SEQUEL TO DOWNFALL OF US ALL: After the destruction of the beloved prison, Daryl takes what's left of the group and seeks out a new, more safer home. His relationship with Beth could falter anytime soon, and the waiting dangers of the undead world are yet to come. Rated M for obvious reasons.
1. Author's notes

Hello everyone.

A couple of months ago I published a fanfic called Downfall of us All. Based on a relationship between Beth and Daryl, the fic was my first on the site, and I was overall pleased on how well it went. I planned a sequel, but my college applications and senior year overall too it's took, and I had to focus back on life. Now that the semester is pretty much done, you know what time it is...

That's right... the SEQUEL!

SPOILER ALERT: In the Downfall, the prison was destroyed by the Governor and his Army goons in an assault that resulted in the destruction of the prison and many characters, including the Governor himself. The new story will directly follow the first, and will be more focused on the overall group than Daryl/Beth, though I'll give them some time inbetween chapters. Daryl will still be the 1st person narrative voice. The comics and season four will also be factors in writing my story, which will involve pretty big battles (I AM a military/sci-fi writer, hopefully...), redneck jokes and references abound, and grenade throwing contests between AJ McCarron and Johnny Manziel.

Oh wait, did I reveal two new characters? Ignore that.

Anyways, y'all are very welcome to start posting your original characters. I will need about seven of all kinds, so there. List the name, age, background, personalities, and weapons (realistic to an extent please). I am still in the planning story-wise but when I am done, the new story will be epic.

-Jokerang


	2. Welcome To Alabama

We had passed by the sign on their way, crossing the state we all had known for years and ventured into another. On their way a sign read "Welcome to Alabama" with the governor's name posted.

_He's either dead or roaming the earth right now_, I thought to myself as I looked at the land ahead. Lots of festering corpses, half-eaten and left to scavengers such as vultures and any dogs to be left around. An occasional walker or two popped up, eager for another meal to fill it's always-hungry body. All they got were arrows from a crossbow. The six of us -me, Beth, Maggie, Glenn, Carl, and Morgan - got together after looking around and seeing if there was any cars or such to look for supplies. The results came back negative.

"Most of these cars were picked clean," said Glenn. "In a fashion we would have done ourselves."

"Too familiar," replied Beth. She looked back at the nearest car. "It's exactly in Carol's fashion. She was the best of us back during the winter months last year."

It gave me another sign of hope. After being forced to flee the remains of the prison, the group consensus was to scout the area for a home, then move on towards Atlanta for supplies and such. This period was a second moving around, similar to the one Rick had taken over during the winter, except there were fewer of us. This meant we had to require less food, but it also meant less able bodies to wield guns and knifes to take on a horde if need be. As a result, when we cleared out a building, we stuck my plan: Morgan, Glenn, and I went in first to eliminate the majority of the walkers in a place, while the other three came in a minute behind to start scavenging and picking off stray walkers. We cleared out at least a dozen houses and small shops like this. One day, perhaps three weeks since the Governor's attempt to kill us all, I was taking a look at an abandoned Burger King when I spotted what was the first good news since the Fort Benning attacks.

_Carol Peletier. If anyone reads this, I'm probably headed west. Alabama. Georgia is a virtual wasteland. If Daryl, Maggie, or Beth finds this, I have Hershel. Injured and unconscious but alive. I-_

That was the last of that message. A can of black spray paint lay on the ground. At first I had to assume the worst - Carol had been attacked while leaving the message - but no blood and the corpses of several walkers with knife wounds to the head proved other wise. Some number of walkers must have forced Carol to flee the ara, leaving what had been written as enough for us. I returned to tell the rest of the group what I had found, and after agreeing that it was indeed her, we decided to take the nearest highway headed for Alabama. While Glenn and Maggie comforted each other for Herschel's possible return, Beth proceeded to hug and kis me consistently saying "Oh, what great news! We can find daddy!"

"Hold your horses," I said after I had enough. "Just 'cause there's this message don't mean they're still out there. We just gotta search what we can, and if we can't find 'em, well, that's life.

* * *

Now in our sights was the Alabama State Welcome Center. The building itself was friendly enough, like a welcoming center should be, but the rest of it was anything but.

The building was fairly intact, as were most of the cars around it, but there were dozens of walkers around it. Not concentrated in one spot, but just plain everywhere. We couldn't just try to get in by one of our usual plans, for that would attract walkers from all round. What we needed was a distraction. After a hasty vote, I was to be it.

I wasn't going to pose any risk to myself, though. With my crossbow and an expendable arrow, I carefully took aim and shot one of the windows of a car away from the main door. I was in the woods near the center, and a good 100 meters or so from the car, so when the window busted and the alarm ran off, I was nowhere to be found by the makeshift herd that heard the alarms and gathered around it, expecting tasty to eat. How disappointed they must have been. "Waste of an arrow. Let's get shit done," I remarked as Glenn, Morgan and I moved around to the side door to burst it open and see what was inside.

About eight walkers. Very manageable. I used the crossbow, now reloaded, and took out the first one, a former business man. Glenn had a machete on him, and quickly sliced off the head of policewoman, snarling even when her rotten head came flying. Morgan, carrying a silenced pistol, shot quickly two more walkers near the back of the room. It was now evident that this part of the building was perhaps a concession area, leading to restrooms. Glenn signaled that it was clear for Maggie, Beth and Carl to join us from hiding in the woods. Morgan covered them while Glenn and I picked off the remaining walkers in the room. Maggie took out her weapons for the women's restroom, and I went into the men restroom.

Finding no walkers, I thought of it to be no harm to take a quick piss in one of the clear urinals. I had just finished when I heard sounds of a struggle from the other restroom. I hurried and joined Beth to enter the women's restroom, but only found Maggie alive, if bloodied up with half a red face with the guts of some walker on her.

"Almost got me in one of the stalls. I got lucky," she said as she went to go clean herself up.

Next up: the main reception room. A good twenty walkers were here. Before any of us could decide what to do: Morgan took it upon himself to use his M4 and slaughter them whole scale. Only problem was, it attracted all the walkers from the car alarm. I was pissed but there was nothing I could do. Morgan was another strong arm for the guns we had, and what I knew from Carl was that his mind was suspect to odd periods of wrath, depression, etc. It was part of the deal we got by adding him to the group. And in this world, we needed all the gun expertise we could get. So all six of us, knowing our cover from the walkers was already blown, fired without discrimination, without remorse. Without feeling. We also used what we could in the melee weapons department, to keep our supply of bullets healthy.

Eventually we thinned their numbers out to manageable numbers. But there would be more. There always were.

While scouting out the land nearby and plotting our route west with Morgan and Carl, Maggie pulled me over to show me something. It was one of Carol's signature scarfs she had pocketed during the winter and used extensively throughout that harsh winter. Why she would drop it I had no clue, unless she was forced to flee again.

The building was not a walker defense. Too open, too many potential walker entrances, not enough supplies to make even a crude barrier. All we had were the weapons we had brought with us from Georgia. The bodies provided one gun and three other items that could be last-resort melee weapons.

No wonder Carol chose to move on. There was a zero percent chance of survival here in the long run. But we could stay one night.

* * *

We set up our mattresses and placed all our weapons around us or on us as we slept. Carl volunteered for the first watch of the night, and he got it. Morgan had watched most nights and he got a well-deserved night of rest. Glenn and Maggie, on the other hand, had found themselves some 'toys', as they called them, and reserved a small office space for themselves for the night, giggling all the way. I just shook my head at the lovebirds as Beth and I tried to sleep in each other's embraces.

Beth seemed out of her usual self. Her normally angelic face had a sad and moody look to it, and every time I tried to 'entertain' her, she just grunted and slided to another side.

"Beth," I said with a concerned tone. "You ain't yourself today."

"Yeah," she said in the same depressed mood she had since the evening sun had set. "It's just..."

"Yes.."

"I - I don't think Herschel, Judith and Carol are really still out there. They might have been back in Georgia, but who knows if they died. I just can't believe that two people in a world of walkers can survive out here. We've seen no survivors for weeks and ruined survivor camps are everywhere. What's to do? To be or not to be? I just don't understand life. Everyone knows there's always going to be more of those things, so why not embrace death?"

Immediately my thoughts went to Beth's first suicide attempt. We all thought she was strong enough to get through that but here her father's life was at question and was no certain answer, though it could very likely be death. I also thought of Dr. Jenner, that guy at the CDC who tried to make us die with him in his bunker. Beth was thinking a lot like him. Which was never good thinking.

"Look," I said. "Get that shit out of your head right now. It ain't right? The world's not the place you make it out to be. Even in this, we got good things. Glen and Maggie have each other, we had little asskicker to care for and fondle other, and I had you to enjoy. We all had the folks with us in the winter, just ten months ago, and if nothing else they gave you, me, and everyone else the support we needed to carry on. I already told you that your father was ten times the man mine was. Think about that for a moment. You should be thankful for the time you had with him, IF he's found to be dead. But I know he's not. He and Carol are stronger than that, and they can survive in this world. I hope so. Because when everything else is against you, even God, hope's the only thing left. Ya hear?"

She just lay there, trying to absorb in everything that I told her. Then Carl walked in the room.

"Not too many walkers. I'm getting sleepy. Daryl, can you take the next watch?"

So I did, keeping an eye out in the distance and trying to drown out the moans of ecstasy coming from where Glenn and Maggie were. We couldn't stay here forever, but west... west was an option. Any direction away from the suffering and pain was.


	3. Lone Ghost

After the sun came up, I kicked Glenn and Morgan to wake them up and get them to start planning. Maggie complained but Glenn shook his head, said something about a job to do, and came outside with me.

The courtyard in particular was a square one, with a stone marker of some kind stating something about how great Alabama was and how it was the best state. Like I cared. The only thing that mattered was the map of Georgia/Alabama I had that was marking Carol's process in moving from one state to another.

"So here," I said to the other two while pointing at the prison's approximate location, "is where Carol started. After the Governor's attack, we first found her trail at the fast food place here." I took a pen and circled the city of LaGrange. "Outskirts of here. We searched the suburbs of this place for a week and found nothing else. Then, on a run, we found another piece of the trail here." I now pointed to Bowdon, a small town good for nothing but walkers. Carol found out that before us, because her exit trail was once again hasty, as in retreat. "And now, with the last lodge here on I20, we have to assume that she's following down this highway towards Birmingham, or closer."

"That's where Morales and his family went when we left for the CDC," said Glenn. "Perhaps..."

"Don't count on it, kid," said Morgan, sensing what Glenn was hoping for. "There's a higher chance they're dead than alive. To be fair I'm not even sure why I'm helping you do this stupid search mission. We should be focused on finding a survivor camp or setting one of our own. You managed to do that and y'all ended up fine."

I stared at him.

"Rick was the one behind that shit," I said to him. "Not me. What I am good at is finding people. Now if you want to go back to your hell of a home, feel free. By all means. But we both know it's been torched. I'll find a place to stay AFTER we find Carol, ya got me?"

Morgan stared back. "Sure. That's don't mean I have to like it. It's just that Carl's a good kid, that's all."

"Great. Now, about I 20. So far the road's been peppered with walkers left and right. We gotta assume that the high concentrations of them are located in cities along the way. Anniston, Pell City and Leeds all should have high concentration of walkers before we hit Birmingham. Glenn, Morgan is likely right about Morales and his family, so don't raise your hopes on them. We don't even have a lead on them since Atlanta. So for now we follow the road and scout out the areas of civilization that Carol should most likely be at. Go get the others and get the vehicles packed up. We're going on a road trip of the Deep South."

* * *

Our vehicles had been doing fine until, not half an hour after leaving the godforsaken welcome center, the CRV broke down. And my motorbike got a flat tire not long after that. It skidded, and some walkers in the area came at me and Beth, but we handled them pretty well. Afterwards we went to see the problem with the CRV.

"Battery issues," said Glenn, the guy with the most car technical experience (my experience was limited to motorbikes). "We can't use this any more. Someone needs to get us another vehicle.

The bike of mine had a spare tire, but the CRV was a real issue. We needed another car and we needed it ASAP. Maggie, Morgan and I decided to walk on foot to the nearest civilization for any vehicles to use for a replacement vehicle. No luck on most of the highway. These cars and trucks had all been wrecked or burned or whatever. The folks in the old times must have gone crazy trying to get out.

There was, however, a small trail leading to what appeared to be a cleaned-out suburb. A half a dozen houses, most of them looking like they should before the world ended, a small fountain, and even a few cars. Perfect. The three of us headed for the nearest one, a nice Lexus that looked brand new out of a car dealership. Only this car wasn't being sold by some con man looking for fast cash.

As Maggie and I began to hotwire it up and get it started, a sort of ticker went off somewhere. It was faint, and not that noticeable. But a few second into it's ticking, Morgan grabbed both of us and threw us into the street where the car was parked. I was about to yell at the crazy son of a bitch for being out of his mind but Morgan said "Stay on the ground, and DON'T move! You'll thank me later," as he also got on the ground. Not a second later a huge fireball, accomplied with a loud explosion, consumed the Lexus, sending pieces of it flying everywhere. Maggie and I stared around.

"The fuck?" I said.

"I knew that type of bomb as soon as I heard the ticker," said Morgan. "I made them myself when I was holed up on King's County. This can only mean one thing - we got someone holed up in this area."

As if to confirm what Morgan just said a loudspeaker came on.

"This entire place is rigged. That was your one and only warning. You have five seconds to get the hell out of here before I turn you into walker bait."

"Came from that house," I said, pointing to the house where the sound came from. "We charge it in two seconds. Now!"

All three of us, not worried about safety during this time, rushed towards the house. Several cars exploded as well, but the three of us crashed into the windows of the abandoned home. It was actually neatly designed, not ruined like most of the world. There were numerous maps with route throughout the South scattered in the room we had landed in. Before any one of us could have gotten our shit together, the door busted, and a figure came out.

He was probably about 6'1, a ginger with something of stubble/beard, and was dressed in a grey camouflage suit and black/blue jeans. In his right hand was a magnum revolver, smartly pointed at me, the most imposing of the three and the only one of us to have a weapon (my crossbow) in his hands. In the left hand was a nasty looking axe contraption. His eyes revealed that he was a deadly killer, and willing to do it quickly and remorselessly. This was not good.

"Explain yourselves or I WILL kill you," the man said in a direct and demanding tone of voice.

Time to act fast. This guy was obviously not playing games.

"Whoa there, big boy," I started to say. "I'm not trying to hurt you or anything. I-"

The man took his gun and pressed it hard against my forehead. I wondered if JC took requests.

"You broke in here after I deliberately told you not to! What do you have to say for yourself-"

"Please," said Maggie, all of a sudden. She looked genuinely concerned. "Our car broke down, this row of houses was the nearest civilization in sight. My sister and others depend on us! For the love of God, don't kill him!"

The man didn't move. He just stared at Maggie for a moment while fixing his gun on me. Finally he did something that no one expected. He switched where his gun was pointed and aimed it near Morgan's head instead. Before either of the other two could move he fired, hitting somewhere outside the broken window. I was about to kill him and grabbed him by the throat when Maggie gestured outside where the bullet fired.

Walkers. dozens of them. Must have been alerted by the exploding cars. One of them was laying on the grass dead, a bullet smashed in it's skull between the eyes.

"How desperate are you if you want to live?" said the man. "Come with my in the basement-bunker. I'll get you the car you want so bad. Maybe then y'all will leave me alone."

* * *

"So, you ex-military or somethin'?" This man clearly was hiding things that we didn't know.

"None of your damn business," he growled as he fixed up a Jeep for us to take, along with some extra fuel.

"We might as well get to know each other or somethin'. It's just what I do."

"Fine," said the man.

"My name is Jack Whitner. I was born in Virginia. I used to be a member of the Ghosts, and we were hell on earth."

"The Ghosts?" asked Morgan, curiously.

"Yeah, elite special forces all around the world. North Korea, Iran, Ukraine - anywhere enemies of our imperialist government were, we went in and handled it. The biters were three times the death threat of those clowns."

"What happened to the rest of the Ghosts?" I asked.

Jack sighed.

"When the world went to shit," said Jack, "the Ghosts were stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We were called in to protect the governor and their chief justice and their aides against a horde of biters. Not just any horde. The biggest group of motherfuckers I've seen - over five hundred of them. We were holed up in a mansion of some kind near Charlotte, with not much of anything to hold them off. After three days, our numbers were cut from 60 to just 15. We knew the building could not be held for much longer. So just one of the Ghosts escorted the bigwigs the hell out of there under the cover of night, while the rest of us took cover under the dead and dying."

"And then..."

"And then we took it straight to what was left of the horde. Every bullet, knife and fist in our arsenal was put to good use. All that blood and stench... I was used to it but that day was the closest I got to not being able to tolerate it." He got up from under the hood of the Jeep. "Fixed a few fuel issues and I've also got you a spare tire for it as well."

"Wait," asked Maggie. "If you were a member of these 'Ghosts'... where are they now? Did they-"

"Of course they didn't die, lady. They're too damn good for that. About four months ago we were hunting and all of a sudden a walker attacks me. It died of course but by the time I returned to the camp it's completely abandoned. Figured I was dead or somethin'. So I settled here and don't trust anyone. Which includes you."

"Reminds me of my own tale", I said, as I recalled the entire journey I'd gone though. From Merle and I arriving at the quarry, to the CDC, and Hershel's farm and the prison and Woodbury and Fort Benning, I told him it all. Jack nodded at most of it, though he did say about Fort Benning that "Typical cocky junior officers. Always trying to bite off more than they can chew."

The Jeep was set up for good. As we got in it, Maggie asked Jack, "You wanna come with us westward?"

He smiled. Smirked, more like it. "Funny thing is, that's where I'm trying to get. It's where the other Ghosts would have gone. Y'all know there's more of remaining civilization west than east, right"

"More civilization? We never thought..."

"Actually girl, there is. Only thing is, this place is pretty warm, and I'm inclined to say here a few more days until I can prepare for a trek west."

"I think you should leave now," said Morgan. His tone was calm but forceful.

"And why so?"

"Son, I used to be just like you here. Alone with an army's worth of weapons to keep out everyone else. One day it caught up to me. The soldiers from Fort Benning overpowered me, and I was barely able to hold on to my life. It was then I realized I needed others to survive in this world. I'm not saying that you need to come with us. What I am saying is that we could use your training and skills to use in the future. Think about it."

I was secretly praying that he would take the offer. This guy was VERY good, as proven by how fast he got on to us when he first found us and by his shooting skills.

Finally he said, "What the hell. let me pack my ammo. And when I suggest something, you do it without question, okay? Good."

**AN: And there's my first crossover of the fanfic. If you play the COD Ghosts I hope you're pleased. The other Ghosts and Rorke will appear later, but I decide when.**

**-Jokerang**


End file.
